Apple Store Employees In Santa Monica Detect Fake ID; Man Arrested

Alert Police Blotter: Invalid Password.

Posted Jan. 23, 2013, 9:05 am

Tim Broughton / Mirror Contributor

Santa Monica police arrested a Hawthorne man on Sunday, Jan. 13 for trying to buy three iPhone 4s phones using fraudulent documents at the Apple store on the Third Street Promenade.

At 5:50 p.m. officers of the Santa Monica Police Department responded to the store at 1415 Third Street Promenade after they had received a report of a theft that had just occurred with a store loss prevention agent detaining the combative suspect.

When the officers arrived they saw the loss prevention agent with the suspect outside the store and took control of the situation, handcuffing the suspect.

The officer investigated and discovered that this suspect had entered the store and attempted to purchase three of iPhone 4s phones.

The suspect had been asked for identification in order to continue the transaction and when the sales associate studied the identification (a California Driver’s License) they noticed that it appeared to be fraudulent.

After the staff at the Apple store verified that this was in fact fraudulent they called the police and told the suspect that the transaction could not be completed due to the suspicious identification.

The suspect then took his fraudulent license and left the store. The loss prevention agent followed the suspect outside the store and asked him to stop, but the suspect refused and so the loss prevention agent grabbed the suspect and restrained him until the police arrived.

The officers examined the California Driver’s License and determined it to be fraudulent. Furthermore this fraudulent document contained a State Seal, which is an added crime.

The officers searched this man and also discovered more fraudulent documents, namely a Social Security Card, and a credit card.

The suspect refused to give any other information to the officers apart from his name.

This 22-year-old man was charged with attempting to obtain credit using another person’s identity, forging another person’s handwriting, forging an official seal, burglary, theft and forgery of a credit card, forging a credit card and violation of probation.

Bail was not granted.

Editor's Note: These reports are part of a regular police coverage series entitled "Alert Police Blotter" (APB), which injects some minor editorial into certain police activities in Santa Monica. Not all of the Mirror's coverage of incidents involving police are portrayed in this manner. More serious crimes and police-related activities are regularly reported without editorial in the pages of the Santa Monica Mirror and its website, smmirror.com.